Commentary
When E Follows T In The C-Suite
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, July 5, 2023
Three days after Twitter’s CTO announced a fundamental shift in the platform’s user experience – capping how much anyone can view – the company’s CEO weighed in by pointing to a Twitter business blog post reiterating what the CTO already tweeted 72-hours earlier.
“You need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform,” the CEO tweeted Tuesday afternoon, raising questions about who the pronoun actually refers to: the CEO, the CTO or the “royal” you.
As highly regarded as Linda Yaccarino is on Madison Avenue, it’s clear that she still takes a back seat to Twitter owner, former CEO and current CTO Elon Musk, who appears to still be calling all the shots.
The episode underscores what many in the media industry expected, that no matter who Musk ultimately named to succeed him in the role – one he only lost after fielding and promising to abide by the outcome of a Twitter poll – it would be a figurehead succession at best.
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And if he wants anyone to take Yaccarino seriously as the company’s CEO, he has let her take center stage and become the public face of the platform, especially when it is making big news.
“Perhaps it’s possible that Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino would then be more empowered to rebuild Twitter without as much involvement from Musk,” Brian Wieser published this morning in an edition of his Madison and Wall newsletter discussing Twitter’s potential response to rival Meta’s launch of Instagram Threads this week, which many have already labeled as a “Twitter killer.”
“If that were to occur, this won’t necessarily be a zero-sum game,” Wieser continued, adding, “It’s very possible that a successful Threads could then lead to a vibrant and competitive sector for micro-blogging as a result.”
Whatever his rationale was for capping what users can view on Twitter, Musk’s personal decision, at least, seems to be moving in the opposite direction.
If you really want Twitter to succeed, Elon, I recommend enabling Yaccarino to.
Otherwise, this will just end up being one of those apocryphal industry “I told you so” stories.
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
My two cents: Linda Yaccarino was the best pick for Twitter advertiser revival. Musk has to get out of the way and let her do what he wisely hired her to do.
She has deep ad media relationships and can dive in and mine those rebuilding their trust in the platform.
Musk is betting people will forget and move on, but he made it personal. So his choice of Linda was a great move. He has to trust himself, and trust HER and let her do what she built a career out of doing.
"but he made it personal." meaning he made it personal to the customers he teased. They are pissed, and advertisers need eyeballs. She can move it back to a platform instead of a personality.